Hot off the presses in April 1998 was the first issue of a magazine that promised to “read the bottom line first.” The hotel business was a big business, and the quarterly HOTELS Investment Outlook was the first global publication focused on this trillion-dollar industry.
In a sector of movers and shakers, it made sense that our first cover story was an interview with possibly the biggest mover and shaker of them all: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, the 13th-richest man in the world, with a net worth fo US$13 billion, who at the time had stakes in Four Seasons, Mövenpick, Fairmont, the George V and Disneyland Paris.
The prince himself, who was described as intense, extremely organized, shrewd, agile-minded and publicity-shy, was interviewed in the desert a few hours outside Riyadh, where he had just distributed about US$20 million to Bedouin tribe members in an Arabian alms-giving tradition known as zakat. The interviewer, who sipped tea with the prince as the two were lounging on green velvet cushions in the sand, was HOTELS’ editor in chief, Jeff Weinstein, who was named to the post in 1994.
“From Prince Alwaleed to Steve Wynn, Kwek Leng Beng and the other visionary developers who have graced the covers over the last 18 years, accessing and sharing their insights about strategies for acquisition and disposition have helped the readers and the editors better understand how to manage portfolios, develop priorities and get a feel for how some of the intangibles play into their decision making,” Jeff says today. “There is never a dull moment in the M&A cycles of the hotel business, and HOTELS’ Investment Outlook has been taking the pulse of the investors since 1998.”
Since then, the roster of movers and shakers has changed, but Prince Alwaleed, whose fortune now stands at US$17.7 billion, still has stakes in major hotels (and the Mouse). And while the middle of the Arabian desert might be the most exotic location that an interview for the magazine has been conducted, HOTELS’ Investment Outlook continues to be essential reading for the hotel investment community.